[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 159 (Friday, November 16, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H8324-H8327]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING THE CRASH OF AMERICAN 
                          AIRLINES FLIGHT 587

  Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the 
Speaker's table the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 272) expressing 
the sense of Congress regarding the crash of American Airlines Flight 
587, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
  The Clerk read the title of the concurrent resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Ohio?
  Mr. COSTELLO. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I do not 
intend to object, and I ask the chairman of the subcommittee for an 
explanation of the concurrent resolution.
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. COSTELLO. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. LaTOURETTE. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  Mr. Speaker, House Concurrent Resolution 272 expresses the sense of 
the House of Representatives regarding the tragic crash of American 
Airlines Flight 587.
  Specifically, the resolution before the body sends its heartfelt 
condolences to the families, friends, and loved ones of the victims of 
that crash; sends its sympathies to the people of both the Dominican 
Republic and the Dominican community of New York City; sends its 
sympathies to the people of the Rockaways; and lastly, commends the 
heroic action of the rescue workers, volunteers, and State and local 
officials who responded to that crash scene.
  Mr. Speaker, New York City has certainly suffered greatly since 
September 11. I know everyone in this body was horrified on November 12 
to see on our television screens the crash of American Airlines Flight 
587.
  But as one Member, I was heartened as I was watching television to 
see that the news was reporting that the sponsor of this resolution, 
the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner), who represents this portion 
of New York City, was on the ground providing comfort and consolation 
to those affected among his constituents in what was, at least in my 
mind, one of the quickest responses by a Member of Congress that I have 
had the honor of witnessing in 7 years.
  I commend the gentleman for his foresight and wisdom in submitting 
this resolution.
  Mr. COSTELLO. Mr. Speaker, continuing to reserve the right to object, 
I thank the gentleman for his explanation and associate myself with his 
remarks.
  At this time, we extend our heartfelt sympathy and condolences to all 
of the families, both on the flight and to those on the ground, who 
lost loved ones in this terrible tragedy.
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. COSTELLO. I yield to the gentleman from New York.
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, 
and I thank both of my colleagues for their kindness and the great 
support this body has shown for those of us in New York since September 
11.
  Monsignor Martin Geraghty is the pastor of St. Francis deSales 
Church, right down the block from where this horrible plane crash 
occurred.
  When he spoke recently to E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, he 
said, ``You can deconstruct everything except suffering.''
  We here today on the floor of the House do not seek to make sense of 
this horrible incident that occurred, but we do seek to express our 
great condolences to the 265 souls who were on board that plane, and to 
those folks in Rockaway who have endured so very much.
  Tomorrow there will be a funeral for the Concannons, a couple that 
lived on East 131st Street. Sadly, it is not the first of funerals we 
have had recently in reaction to horrible tragedies. St. Francis 
deSales Church lost about 30 members of its parish, and as many as 20 
of them firefighters lost on September 11.

[[Page H8325]]

  When this horrible accident occurred on November 12, it could not, in 
an odd way, have happened in a better place. If we are going to have a 
first responder emergency that relies on the heroism of the people in 
the community, Rockaway is the place we want to have it.
  On November 12, just like on September 11, my neighbors, people in 
Rockaway, retired firefighters, off-duty firefighters, police officers, 
port authority policemen, EMTs, ran out of their homes.
  I spoke to the head of Peninsula Hospital at the end of the day, that 
horrible day, and I asked, how many injuries did you have? He said, we 
had about 40 people come through our doors. I asked if they were 
firefighters. He said just about every one of them were, but only a few 
of them were on duty. People came in in their tee shirts and jeans 
because they ran out of their houses to save their neighbors.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a community that every day looks up to the 
heavens, sometimes in praise of God Almighty, but sometimes to look at 
the planes flying low overhead. I do not think anyone in our community 
will ever look at those planes overhead the same way. This has been an 
instance that has shaken us. As I have said before, it is almost as if 
it was an aftershock to an earthquake that happened on September 11.
  But as horrible as the incident was, it once again reminded us in New 
York City and in our country of our common humanity. About as far away 
as one can possibly get from Belle Harbor, Queens, is the community in 
upper Manhattan in Washington Heights where many of the relatives of 
many of those flying on this plane lived.
  I must confess, there is not a great deal that the people in the 
Dominican communities of Washington Heights have in common with the 
Irish, Italian, and Jewish community of Rockaway, but on November 12, 
we were reminded once again what is great about New York City and what 
is great about our country.
  We come here with great hopes, with great aspirations, and we find 
them in New York City. When there are catastrophies like struck us on 
September 11 and November 12, we are reminded again what we have in 
common. What we have in common on this day is that families in 
Washington Heights and in Rockaway are going to sit down to dinner with 
an empty seat at the table. They are going to go to worship at Sunday 
mass or this Saturday at shul and they are going to mourn for those 
that have been lost in the last couple of months.

                              {time}  1515

  We have a common bond in this country. It is that we are common in 
the humanity that we have. So all of us in Rockaway send our sincere 
condolences to those that lost their lives on this plane. We share with 
those families that are still mourning September 11, and we join in 
paying our great thanks to those Members of this House who have shown 
such great support to New York City.
  This is a time of national mourning, but it is a time of particular 
mourning to those of us in New York City.
  Mr. Speaker, I will include in the Record not only Mr. Dionne's 
editorial about the Rockaways but two that were written by Michael Daly 
of the Daily News which capture the essence of that great community.

               [From the Washington Post, Nov. 13, 2001]

                          Unshakable Rockaway

                         (By E.J. Dionne, Jr.)

       Our family has a love affair with a star-crossed little 
     neighborhood at the edge of New York City. In our house, 
     ``Rockaway'' is a magic word.
       Going to Rockaway means seeing grandma and aunts and uncles 
     and ``the cousins.'' A passel of kids of varying ages, the 
     cousins love playing baseball in the front yard, romping on 
     the beach just two blocks away, or exploring what's left of 
     the Fort Tilden gun emplacements that overlook the Atlantic 
     Ocean. The guns were put there to fight Nazis who many feared 
     would come across the sea during World War II. Fortunately, 
     the Nazis never came. Now the neighborhood faces troubles no 
     one ever imagined. The television screen Monday morning cut 
     suddenly to a city block we know and cherish. The flames were 
     ripping through houses and buildings two doors down from my 
     brother-in-law's home.
       We knew my mother-in-law was in church at the time of the 
     crash--she goes to the 9 a.m. Mass every day at St. Francis 
     de Sales, about a block from where some of the plane 
     fragments hit. We learned, courtesy of a live interview with 
     Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, that the church was okay. We 
     appreciated that, Mr. Mayor. Grandma finally got through to 
     us. She and the rest of the family were okay too.
       Giuliani said he remembered the church because of the many 
     funerals and memorial services he had attended there since 
     Sept. 11. You see, Rockaway, and in particular the Belle 
     Harbor section that was struck on Monday, had already 
     suffered mightily in the World Trade Center disaster.
       It's a neighborhood full of firefighters and upwardly 
     mobile, middle-class people, so many of whom had moved across 
     the Gil Hodges Bridge from working-class sections of 
     Brooklyn. Many found good jobs in the financial boom of the 
     1990's and worked in the trade center.
       To call this neighborhood old-fashioned is both true and 
     misleading. True because the prevailing values really are 
     old-fashioned. Misleading because everyone is acutely aware 
     that it takes hard work and careful adjustment to keep old 
     values alive in the year 2001.
       People in Belle Harbor don't much debate a word like 
     ``communitarian.'' They don't have to. That's just what these 
     people are. I know from family experience that when a 
     neighbor gets sick, whole blocks mobilize instantly. Food 
     just shows up. Baby sitters suddenly materialize. The 
     invitation for a drink at the Harbor Light, a friendly 
     establishment smack in the path of Monday's devastation, 
     comes right on time. The word gets out fast. Nobody ever asks 
     questions. Nobody thinks about being paid back. Everybody 
     knows the same comfort will be available for them when they 
     need it.
       Firefighters are as thick on the ground as steelworkers 
     once were in Pittsburgh or stockbrokers still are in Brooklyn 
     Heights. It's work that's often passed down from father to 
     son. Few professions fit the neighborhood better: a marriage 
     of family values with public service. Their attitude fits 
     too--tough on the outside, romantic on the inside.
       The funny thing about this neighborhood is that for all the 
     ties of clan and ethnicity and faith--most of the neighbors 
     we know are Irish, with a sprinkling of Italians, and 
     Catholic--there is a kind of open welcome you don't run into 
     everywhere. Many people who don't know the place think this 
     is an attitude foreign to New York City. It isn't. My son 
     loves the neighborhood because he can hit the streets and 
     within five minutes be brought into a game of basketball or 
     beach baseball or whatever else is going on. He's not an 
     outsider. He's a kid, he's Brian's cousin, he's an honorary 
     neighbor.
       That's why it was so painful to watch this neighborhood in 
     flames. Why so much trouble has come so fast to one small 
     place I cannot explain. All I know is that it's a place that 
     knows how to pull together and get dinner to the household 
     down the street where no one is home to cook. Maybe it goes 
     through hard times because it is so naturally gifted at 
     dealing with them.
       A few weeks back, I was talking with Monsignor Martin 
     Geraghty, the pastor of St. Francis de Sales, about his 
     neighborhood's troubles. He's a deeply thoughtful man, a 
     neighborhood intellectual who never flaunts how smart he is. 
     He spoke of the academic trend to deconstruct, and thus 
     explain away, anything. ``You can deconstruct everything,'' 
     he said, ``except suffering.'' I don't envy Monsignor 
     Geraghty's task of explaining to the good people of this 
     exceptional neighborhood why the inexplicable keeps happening 
     to them.
                                  ____


              [From the New York Daily News Nov. 13, 2001]

                   Grief Returns to Street of Heroes

                           (By Michael Daly)

       The routines of everyday life in Rockaway had continued 
     after her firefighter son perished at the World Trade Center, 
     and Gail Allen had just taken out the trash when a roaring 
     came from above.
       ``I heard noise and saw something falling from the sky and 
     saw black smoke everywhere,'' Allen recalled. ``I didn't know 
     what happened. I didn't know what was going to happen next.''
       Allen dashed into her house, where her husband and six 
     others were sleeping.
       ``I just ran in screaming, `Get out!''' she said afterward.
       She had responded just as her son, Firefighter Richard 
     Allen, would have.
       ``It must be in the blood,'' she said. ``Get everybody 
     safe. That was my immediate reaction.''
       After everyone was safely down the block, she learned that 
     an airliner had crashed across from her house on Beach 130th 
     St. Many of her neighbors are cops and firefighters, and 
     their terrible losses at the World Trade Center did not keep 
     them from spilling out of their homes and racing headlong 
     into danger.
       Other off-duty firefighters arrived from Brooklyn, the 
     Bronx, Manhattan and Long Island. Off-duty airline pilot Paul 
     Maracina could only marvel.
       ``People just ran out of their houses in their pajamas, 
     filling the streets, looking to help,'' Maracina said. ``It 
     was fantastic to see how fast people were working together. 
     The willingness of volunteers to leap into a raging inferno 
     to help other people.''
       Maracina had heard the plane's noise become a roar just 
     before the crash. He knew hitting full throttle is standard 
     procedure in the event of an engine failure.

[[Page H8326]]

       ``This wasn't a terrorist attack. This was an engine 
     failure shadowed by Sept. 11,'' he suggested.
       Around the corner, 8-year-old James Goldberg was pinning to 
     a tree a piece of cardboard on which he had crayoned a map of 
     the Rockaways and a message.
       ``NYPD, NYFD: Thank you very much.''
       Goldberg announced he wants to become a firefighter when he 
     grows up.
       ``Because a lot of my friends' dads are,'' he said.
       He then gave an exact count.
       ``Thirteen are firemen,'' he said.


                             Fresh Memories

       Back on Beach 130th St., Gail Allen stood in the sunny 
     chill wearing a turnout coat that a firefighter had loaned 
     her. She clutched a photo of a beautiful young man in a fire 
     helmet.
       ``This is my son Richie Allen,'' she said. ``He lived in 
     Rockaway his whole life. He was 31. He went from lifeguard to 
     fireman. He was with Ladder 15, Engine 4. We had his memorial 
     on Friday.''
       The memorial had been diagonally across the street at 
     St. Francis de Sales, one of 12 services held there for 
     World Trade Center victims. The pastor, Msgr. Martin 
     Geraghty, was now off blessing bodies from among the 260 
     people who had been on American Airlines Flight 587 and 
     however, many people had been killed on the ground in a 
     community that had already lost more than 70 at the Trade 
     Center.
       Whatever yesterday's count was in Rockaway, Allen was all 
     but certain the dead would include neighbors who had become 
     only closer since Sept. 11.
       ``I'll know them. I'll know their kids. I'll be hugging 
     them,'' Allen said.
       Allen walked down the street toward her daughter's house by 
     the beach. Somebody asked why there were so many firefighters 
     from Rockaway.
       ``They start out as lifeguards,'' she said. ``Saving lives, 
     it gets in their blood. It's inborn, I believe. It's what 
     they do.''
       Her son had been a firefighter only since May, but she had 
     no doubt he had died following his true calling.
       ``It was a dream come true,'' she said.
       She kept walking, the sun glinting off the ocean just ahead 
     where her son had rescued more than a few swimmers during his 
     years as a lifeguard. Four blocks behind her was the bay, 
     across which you can clearly see the New York skyline and the 
     startling absence of the two buildings where he had died 
     helping to save thousands.
       The wind gusted and the gulls wheeled overhead and Allen 
     had difficulty grasping the monstrous unfairness of tragedy 
     again striking this slender peninsula of selflessness and 
     valor.
       ``It's hard to believe we're going to have other people in 
     the neighborhood going through it,'' she said. ``It's hard to 
     believe other mothers are going to hurt this way.''
       A firefighter who is her husband's cousin came up and 
     hugged her, his face blackened by smoke and soot. She turned 
     to another firefighter who had rushed there without 
     protective gloves.
       ``I have an extra set of gloves at home if you need them,'' 
     she said.
       Then Allen went up into her daughter's house in the turnout 
     coat, the picture of the oldest of her six children in her 
     hand.
       ``We're still waiting for his remains to say goodbye,'' she 
     said.
       She later would be heading into Manhattan to join the 
     mothers and wives of other fallen firefighters in urging city 
     officials to do all they can to recover those still lost 
     beyond the bay at Ground Zero.
       ``If it's not safe, make it safe. Go slower,'' she said.
       She then would return to her narrow peninsula, which will 
     get through all its trials the Rockaway way.
       ``We'll get through it helping each other,'' she said.
                                  ____


             [From the New York Daily News, Nov. 14, 2001]

                      Sorrow Binds a Special Place

                           (By Michael Daly)

       Retired Firefighter Flip Mullen emerged from the 9 a.m. 
     Mass at St. Francis de Sales Church in a turnout coat frayed 
     to holiness by years of dashing into mortal peril.
       Mullen had taken off his beautifully battered helmet as he 
     entered, and he donned it again as he returned to sun-
     splashed Rockaway Beach Blvd.
       He looked just as he had on Sept. 11, when word of the 
     World Trade Center attack caused him to leap out of a 
     decade's retirement and race to where 12 people in his parish 
     would die.
       Mullen grabbed his gear again Monday, when a plane 
     nosedived three blocks from the church. Other past and 
     present firefighters came running just as fast as they had to 
     the twin towers.
       Five more parishioners appeared to have met death from the 
     sky, along with the 260 poor souls on the plane. Mullen asked 
     aloud the question that he had carried into church.
       ``You wonder why bad things happen to good people,'' he 
     said.
       The closeness of the knit in Rockaway was clear as he cited 
     his familial tie to one of the victims on the ground, 24-
     year-old Christopher Lawler.
       ``His mom is my brother-in-law's kid sister,'' he said.
       Mullen's next words made Lawler kin to us all. ``Just a 
     nice, caring person.''


                          mourning on sept. 11

       Mullen strode off in his helmet and boots. The pastor, 
     Msgr. Martin Geraghty, appeared shortly afterward. He allowed 
     that even he was surprised by the faith of Rockaway when he 
     summoned people to prayer by ringing the church bells on the 
     evening of Sept. 11.
       ``I thought maybe 50 or 100 would come,'' he said. ``It was 
     500. The next day it was 1,000.''
       Since then Geraghty had conducted 11 memorials for World 
     Trade Center victims.
       ``We thought we had kind of gone through one of the stages 
     of our grief,'' he said.
       He and his parishioners would face this second tragedy just 
     as they had the earlier one.
       ``The first language of consolation is nonverbal,'' he 
     said. ``It's hugs.''
       He had no doubt that the parish would meet even so dire a 
     test of its mettle.
       ``We're from Rockaway,'' he said. ``We have a little salt 
     from the ocean in us. We're salty.''
       Nobody had more salt in him than young Richie Allen, who 
     had loved to swim and fish in the ocean just a block away. He 
     had written a poem titled simply, ``The Beach.''

     My escape is the beach where I can be all alone and out of 
           reach.
     I often sit in the open on the cold, hard rocks
     My thoughts circling around the hands of a cloud
     I stare into the ocean blue, and see all my fantasies, plans 
           and dreams come true.

       This pure Rockaway boy's dream was to become a firefighter, 
     and he was one for just five months when he perished at 
     the Trade Center. Geraghty had presided over Allen's 
     memorial last Friday, and he used images of the sea in his 
     talk.
       ``Going against the tide of people coming out, helping 
     people who have lost sight of the shore,'' Geraghty recalled.
       Allen's parents, Gail and Richard, were around the corner, 
     in front of their house on Beach 130th St. Their ocean-loving 
     son gave the father a fishing rod for Christmas. The father 
     was Rockaway born, but he had never been much of an angler.
       ``I think I'll take up fishing,'' the father now said.
       A neighbor came up, looking stricken, saying she had just 
     seen some belongings that spilled out of the plane.
       ``Children's clothes,'' she said. ``Flip-flops. . . .''
       Flip-flops in Rockaway, meaning kids and summer and life at 
     its best. The neighbor's voice broke, and she seemed near 
     tears, but one of her own youngsters ran up and she caught 
     herself.
       She walked off, and another neighbor backed her car up the 
     block. The street ahead still was blocked by emergency 
     vehicles.
       ``We have some of the cockpit in the backyard and some 
     luggage, but we're okay,'' the neighbor said.


                     Horrible Piece of Catastrophe

       Across the street, 4-year-old Kevin Otton, son of 
     Firefighter Dennis Otton, picked up something from a strip of 
     grass along a driveway. He went over and placed two small 
     pieces of the plane in his mother's hand. She tapped one bit 
     of blackened aluminum with a painted nail.
       ``It's scary when you think how huge an airplane is,'' 
     Donna Blackburn-Otton said.
       She then looked at her boy, who seemed already infused with 
     a firefighter's spirit.
       ``He wants to be right there in the midst of helping,'' she 
     said.
       Back in front of the Allen house, Gail Allen showed a 
     visitor a photo her fallen son took from the beach. It 
     captured a dark sky clearing over the ocean as if cleaved by 
     light.
       ``Like the gates of heaven,'' the mother said.
       She was certain Firefighter Richard Allen passed through 
     those gates and will watch over them all no matter what else 
     may befall Rockaway.
       ``Thank God we have an angel on the beach,'' she said.
                                  ____


             [From the New York Daily News, Nov. 14, 2001]

                    The Ties That Bind the Rockaways

                         (By Alex Storozynski)

       In the wake of the crash of American Flight 587 this week, 
     the nation has learned a lot about how special the Rockaways 
     are. As one who grew up there with sand in my shoes, I know 
     it's true. Let me tell you why.
       First of all, there's something about having a roaring 
     ocean on one side and Jamaica Bay on the other that draws 
     people together. It makes you appreciate Mother Nature and 
     the fragility of human life.
       During some storms, the ocean and bay have even met, 
     flooding the streets. The last time this happened was during 
     the great nor'easter of '91 that was immortalized in ``The 
     Perfect Storm.''
       The isolation of this 10-mile-long, four-block-wide sand 
     bar also forces you to appreciate your neighbors.
       When I was growing up, the house my family lived in was the 
     biggest on the block, so the neighborhood kids used to get 
     together in the backyard and driveway to hold bazaars to 
     raise money for muscular dystrophy.
       Incredibly, one of the engines from Flight 587 landed in 
     the driveway of that childhood home, setting it, a boat and 
     the garage on fire. Luckily, the family living there escaped 
     with only cuts and bruises.

[[Page H8327]]

       The isolation also gives residents a unique vision of the 
     city--literally, in some ways. As a kid looking out the 
     window from the top floor of my house, I could watch the twin 
     towers of the World Trade Center rise in the distance as they 
     were constructed during the '60s and early '70s. An awesome 
     sight--but that was New York City. We were in Rockaway.
       People who visit Rockaway from ``the city'' are known as 
     DFD--Down for the Day. Generally, you have to keep your eyes 
     on DFDs because they often can't swim, and they don't always 
     take all their garbage with them when leaving the beach.
       Rockaway teenagers often work as Parks Department employees 
     cleaning the beach, or they learn how to save others as 
     lifeguards. Many continue in the rescue tradition by becoming 
     cops and firefighters. The common experiences they have as 
     youngsters help form lifetime friendships.
       Another intense experience that helps bind the good folks 
     of Rockaway together always has been the roar of the planes 
     on the flight path from Kennedy Airport. When the Concorde 
     started flying in the 1970s, teachers at local schools had to 
     stop classes for a minute or two whenever it passed over us 
     because it rattled windows and made lessons inaudible.
       Many of my friends who heard the crash Monday said at first 
     they thought the sound was merely from the Concorde, which 
     recently resumed flights.
       It ripped my heart apart when I realized that St. Francis 
     de Sales Church will be holding more funerals and memorials 
     for its neighbors. The parish has suffered incredible torment 
     lately because so many of its members were killed in the 
     terrorist attack on the WTC.
       As the smoldering embers turn to ashes and the smell of jet 
     fuel is wafted away by the salty ocean air, I pray that 
     Rockaway will heal from this latest tragedy. While these days 
     I may technically be a DFD, I still have sand in my shoes.
  Mr. COSTELLO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. 
Weiner) for his leadership and for sponsoring this resolution.
  Mr. Speaker, reserving my right to object, I yield to the gentleman 
from New York (Mr. Serrano).
  Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to join the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner) 
in expressing our sense of loss and pain both to the community and the 
Rockaways, as well as the community in the Dominican areas and 
throughout the City of New York.
  It is somewhat even sadder to know that a community that lost so many 
people, then on another day saw so many people being lost right there 
in their community. It is the kind of thing that you cannot explain; 
and you do not try to ask why they happen, but they did happen.
  The stories that are coming out about people who were on that flight, 
the stories of the American immigration and the immigration to this 
country. So many stories of people who came here, especially from the 
Dominican Republic to find a new world, a new life. And so many were 
involved in doing just that and were going back for whatever reason.
  Interestingly enough, interestingly enough, I learned something after 
this tragedy that I did not know before. And that was that a lot of 
folks were going back to celebrate Thanksgiving in the Dominican 
Republic. One would ask, why celebrate Thanksgiving in the Dominican 
Republic; it is an American celebration. Well, these are families who 
have been here so long and traveling back and forth to the point where 
that celebration has now become part of many, if not all, communities 
in the Dominican Republic.
  So the same way that this weekend and this week we will be traveling 
to be near loved ones, some folks come from the Dominican Republic to 
celebrate Thanksgiving in New York and the United States, and some go 
back to the Dominican Republic to celebrate Thanksgiving with all of 
that which is ours, the trimmings of the turkey and the celebration 
with a little touch of rice and beans and fried bananas that make who 
we are as a country, that we take every tradition and add our personal 
touch to it.
  Then there are the other stories of, for instance, the woman in my 
district who started to go to beauty culture school in the Dominican 
Republic at the age of 12. Came to the United States and saved all of 
her tips, saved all of her tips for 6, 7, 8 years with the intent some 
day of owning her own place. And on 149th Street in the Bronx, she 
owned her own place just 6 months ago. She was going back to her folks 
to tell them the story of the success she had found in this new land of 
opportunity and she never made it.
  We also have the stories about people who came here, the man who came 
here and became a citizen and was going home to pick up children who 
now because of his citizenship could enter into the country and he was 
lost. And so when we honor the memories of these folks, I think we have 
to realize that this is a classic American story of people who came 
here, of people who came here to make a better life for themselves, and 
who either did or are in the process of doing it.
  In closing, let me say as I started to say to the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Weiner) before, that there is something so dramatic and yet 
so sad and yet so strong about the fact that in that community in the 
Rockaways, which also has the tradition of immigrants coming here to 
succeed, they became the final place for the death of so many of these 
people. And these communities, who probably on a daily basis had 
perhaps very little in common at times, certainly maybe in the 
homeownership style or somewhat culturally; yet, at the end of it all, 
the suffering of 60, 70 families in that community through the World 
Trade Center and then the suffering of 260 through this airplane.
  I am glad this resolution is up. We join today in expressing our 
sympathy to all these families, and we just hope that we can now go on 
and help the survivors to face this tragedy.
  Mr. COSTELLO. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Otter). Is there objection to the 
request of the gentleman from Ohio?
  There was no objection.
  The Clerk read the concurrent resolution, as follows:

                            H. Con. Res. 272

       Whereas American Airlines Flight 587 en route from John F. 
     Kennedy Airport in Queens County, New York, to Santo Domingo, 
     Dominican Republic, crashed on the Rockaway Peninsula in 
     Queens County, New York, on November 12, 2001;
       Whereas the crash resulted in a tragic loss of life 
     estimated at 265 individuals, including passengers, crew 
     members, and people on the ground;
       Whereas New York City has strong cultural, familial, and 
     historic ties to the Dominican Republic;
       Whereas many of the passengers of American Airlines Flight 
     587 were of Dominican origin and resided in the Washington 
     Heights community, a vibrant neighborhood which is an 
     integral part of our national cultural mosaic;
       Whereas the Rockaway community has already suffered greatly 
     as a result of the attacks on the United States of September 
     11, 2001, as home to the highest concentration of 
     firefighters in New York City, many of whom lost their lives 
     at the World Trade Center;
       Whereas many Rockaway residents ignored the risks and 
     rushed to the site of the plane crash in an effort to help;
       Whereas the people of the Rockaway community have served as 
     an inspiration through their resilience in the face of 
     adversity and their faith in and practice of community; and
       Whereas the professional emergency personnel on the ground 
     performed valiantly limiting the devastation of this tragedy: 
     Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate 
     concurring), That Congress--
       (1) sends its heartfelt condolences to the families, 
     friends, and loved ones of the victims of the crash of 
     American Airlines Flight 587 on the Rockaway Peninsula in 
     Queens County, New York, on November 12, 2001;
       (2) sends its sympathies to the people of the Dominican 
     Republic and to the Dominican community in New York City;
       (3) sends its sympathies to the people of the Rockaway 
     community;
       (4) commends the heroic actions of the rescue workers, 
     volunteers, and State and local officials who responded to 
     this tragic event with courage, determination, and skill; and
       (5) directs the Clerk of the House of Representatives to 
     transmit an enrolled copy of this resolution to the President 
     of the Dominican Republic.

  The concurrent resolution was agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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